Croft got on the phone to Leeds.
‘Get on to Norway again,’ he said, ‘and tell them I’d like a report on Randi Paulsen written by someone who is not a practising Christian.’
• • •
Father Anselm was not too difficult to find. He had been informed of the all-too-obvious inspection by Clayton and the Bishop of Peckham of the brothers at their breakfast. He was therefore half expecting a visit. The two found him in the chapel at prayer. Unwilling, of course, to interrupt him, they stood by the door. Though he was kneeling in the back row of seats, Father Anselm was quite oblivious of their presence. He went on praying for a very, very long time. Finally, after several sessions of extra time, he rose, saw Clayton and the Bishop in the doorway, raised his eyebrows and came forward.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked, fixing his keen, intimidating gaze on one after the other.
‘Yes — we should rather like to have a few words with you,’ said Ernest Clayton. Father Anselm gestured to him, as if to say, ‘Go right ahead.’ But Clayton was not having that. ‘Somewhere more private would be better — if there is anywhere.’ Suppressing a spasm of irritation which flitted over his mouth revealingly, Father Anselm led the way through the murky corridors to the conference room. Once inside, he turned, drew a bunch of keys from a rope around his waist, and locked the door. He turned, gave the two another piercing look, as if to say, ‘Is this private enough for you?’, and gestured them towards the easy chairs. What surprised Clayton was that, unusually for him, he consented to sit down in one himself. He sat, in fact, in a perfectly relaxed manner, obviously aware that his height gave him a perceptible advantage over the other two. He looked full of calm confidence.
‘Now, again, what can I do for you?’ he asked.
Ernest Clayton had already decided that it would be he who did the talking.
‘I’ll come to the point at once,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I saw a young man within the walls here, dressed as one of your brothers. He was a young man — boy, perhaps, would be a better description — whom I’d met before. I gave him a lift in my car up here, and he impressed me very disagreeably. In fact, I was forced to turn him out. He was obsessed with sex, ill-mannered, and foul in his language. To my mind he was very obviously the delinquent type, and he seemed to be making an effort to disgust me and shock me. You will see, I think, why I was disturbed to find him among your brothers here.’
Father Anselm had been regarding him with something close to an amiable smile on his face. Clayton wondered what that unprecedented aspect could portend. When he finished speaking, Father Anselm left a couple of seconds’ silence, and then said: ‘Yes, I can see why you were disturbed.’ There was a slight stress on the ‘you’. Father Anselm said no more, merely continuing to look blandly on his inquisitor.
‘Could you explain, then,’ said Ernest Clayton, rather put off his stride, ‘how this young man came to be here?’
‘No, I could not,’ said Father Anselm equably. ‘Even if I knew who you were referring to, and even if I knew why he was here, I would not do so. It is my invariable custom never to discuss the private affairs of either the brothers who have taken their vows, or the occasional guests here. To do so would be an unforgivable breach of trust.’
‘I see,’ said Ernest Clayton. ‘I should explain that both times I have seen him within the Community’s walls he has avoided me, disappeared suddenly — on one occasion running very fast to avoid being questioned. You can hardly wonder if I am suspicious.’
‘No, no,’ said Father Anselm genially, ‘I am not in the least surprised at your being suspicious.’ He left another long pause, which Ernest Clayton realized was designed to give him time to realize what a silly little boy he was being. ‘On the other hand,’ went on Father Anselm, ‘an intelligent mind would, I think, remember that our brothers come here to get away from the world. Many are most loath to come into contact with people from outside the walls — particularly brothers who have recently joined the Community, and particularly if the person from the outside world was known to them in their private life. Such behaviour is quite normal, I assure you.’
‘Not running away, surely?’
‘Yes, surely. You have an image in your mind of a monk: a serious, pious, grave young man. Running does not fit neatly into your image, and therefore you can’t imagine a monk running away. But that is only one kind — perhaps quite a small number. There are many other kinds: frightened men, disturbed men, and they will act in many different ways that you would find quite impossible to make conform to your stereotype, and you will be surprised. But you must not expect me to be surprised. I know all the kinds.’
Thus far, Ernest Clayton had to admit, Father Anselm was doing rather well. He himself was in the unfortunate position that the more he brought his suspicions and the reasons for them out in the open, the more flimsy they appeared. But once he had waded in, there seemed no alternative but to swim out to sea.
‘That isn’t quite the only thing that has worried me,’ he went on, looking straight into Father Anselm’s bland but cold blue eyes. ‘When the murder was discovered, you tried to persuade the Bishop here that the murderer must be one of our group in the guest wing, one of the delegates to the symposium, even though on a factual level the argument wouldn’t hold water for a moment.’
Father Anselm shrugged, and his eyes looked straight back at Ernest Clayton without the slightest degree of embarrassment. ‘It was an opinion. It is still my opinion. I am not a detective, and therefore my opinions are quite open to correction or disagreement.’
‘You are not a detective, of course. On the other hand, you are not a fool either.’
‘I am grateful for your excellent opinion.’ Father Anselm stirred a little in his chair, as he prepared to shift his stance and go on to the attack. ‘And not being a fool I am of course quite aware of the direction in which all these questions are leading. How is one to put it? I gather you find something “fishy” in our little Community. I do not know what you suspect, or even whether you have got as far as to suspect anything specific. But I must say that your reasons for suspicion seem extraordinarily flimsy, or else based on sheer ignorance of such a community as this and the kind of people who join it. That being so, your suspicions are of no interest to me. Until you give me some concrete reason for them, I do not feel called upon to give you any further explanations.’
He had shown no anger: on the contrary, no equanimity could be more complete than his. Ernest Clayton decided he must be even more brutal, in an attempt to flush him out.
‘You tried to suggest to the Bishop after the murder that the whole thing could be hushed up,’ he said baldly.
Father Anselm looked benevolently astonished. ‘Is that the impression you gained?’ he said, turning to the Bishop. ‘How very extraordinary. And what exactly was it I said that made you think I was suggesting such a very improper course?’
The Bishop gulped and flapped his hands nervously. He had been pessimistic about this meeting to start with, and it was very clear to him by now which way it was going. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly what you said,’ he muttered feebly, ‘it was more that this was . . . this seemed . . . seemed to be an idea that was in the air.’
Father Anselm managed an exquisitely timed pause. ‘I see,’ he said. Then after another pause for meditation, and turning towards Ernest Clayton, he said: ‘And what else am I to be accountable for?’
Ernest Clayton had a general feeling of having been badly routed. ‘I’m quite willing to admit,’ he said, ‘that many of the things that have given me the idea that — that things are not quite as they should be, are very small things, insignificant in themselves. Nevertheless, a murder is not insignificant. Inevitably I can’t quite divorce in my mind these small things from this one big thing, and I suppose the police would feel the same way. I’m quite sure, for instance, that they would be anxious to follow up all possible causes of suspicion, simply because they could be relevant to the
murder.’
Father Anselm raised his eyebrows and said nothing.
‘Now the thing that really worries me,’ went on Clayton, ‘is the young man appearing here. And if you are not willing to explain how that could come about, I am quite willing to turn the matter over to them, and trust to their judgement of how far it is significant.’
There was a fluttering gesture of protest from the Bishop of Peckham, and it was not lost on Father Anselm. It occurred to him that the Bishop was more of an ally than an opponent, and that a degree of compromise might well be on the cards.
‘Of course, that is as you decide, Mr Clayton,’ he said courteously, ‘since the whole notion is apparently yours. I need hardly say that everything in the Community is open to inspection, whether by our regular visitor, by the Church authorities or by the police. My only reason for preferring the Church to the police is the sort of publicity which inevitably seems to attend on police enquiries these days. It is bad enough to have the murder investigation on our hands, but if it can be contained to that, not too much harm need be done. But a general investigation, by the police, of the Community as a whole could hardly be good for the Church generally. Perhaps you, My Lord, might agree with me on that point, at any rate.’
‘Oh — er — absolutely, quite. Very regrettable, absolutely to be avoided,’ stammered the Bishop with an agonized expression on his face. ‘The very last thing we want.’
‘I wonder if I may say a few things about the people who come here,’ said Father Anselm, still as benign and inscrutable as he had been throughout the interview, ‘talking, please understand, in general and not in particular. I emphasize this, because the one thing which I can not tolerate is the suggestion that I could betray the trust of anyone who has come here in distress. Would you allow me?’
‘Do, do — please,’ burbled the Bishop.
‘As I implied, there are many types who come here with the notion that they may have a vocation for the religious life. Many of them are young people. You are no doubt as aware as any of the thirst for religion — almost any religion, it sometimes seems — among the young today. It has, I believe, formed the subject for many a sermon and homily among my brothers in the clergy.’
He looked at Ernest Clayton, who nodded — not to agree with the existence of such a thirst, merely to agree that it was a frequent topic for sermonizing.
‘This thirst leads many people to us. Many, most, are quite unsuited to the life. Some are leading lives in the world that are, to the Church’s thinking, misguided, even scandalous. I don’t know if you feel that we should reject sinners?’ He smiled benignly at Clayton. ‘Turn them out of our car, so to speak. We feel we cannot. We feel that to reject them would be a negation of the whole Christian message, which was a message to sinners. So if, when we have talked to them, and explained to them what the life here entails, they still feel they want to join us for a short time, as an experiment, then we allow them to do so. And in more than one case this short time has become a longer time, and the man has finally taken his vows, joined us, to devote his life to our ideals. To me, with I hope pardonable pride, this seems something of a triumph. But if, as very frequently happens, the person is quite unsuited to our life, he finds it out very soon, and leaves us. No harm has been done. Perhaps, in the long run, some good has been, a grain has been sown: who can tell? But that is our policy, and I hope it explains some of the things that have bewildered you.’
He sat back, with a degree of benevolent self-satisfaction. He was rewarded by the Bishop saying: ‘Yes, indeed. A most interesting statement. A very commendable policy.’
‘I am still not really happy in my mind about why the young man should be so scared of me as to run away,’ said Ernest Clayton.
‘I have suggested one possible reason. That you represent in his mind the world he is trying to run away from. Another presents itself: if he had behaved badly to you, he may well have been overcome by feelings of shame. You smile, but I cannot think that quite so improbable as you seem to. I have seen the spiritual atmosphere of the Community work great changes on people in a very short space of time.’
‘In this case,’ said Ernest Clayton, ‘you seem to have been so convinced by the quick-working influence of the Community that you let him don the habit of a brother of the Community almost as soon as he arrived,’ said Ernest Clayton. ‘I wonder whether you were not perhaps a little too easily convinced. Or is that the usual practice?’
‘Not the usual practice, no. Not unless it was, as you say, someone who we were very certain had a vocation.’
‘And you did feel that in this case?’
‘You forget, I am not talking about particular cases,’ said Father Anselm reprovingly. ‘And you forget too that the guest wing was occupied by members of the symposium.’
‘There are spare rooms there.’
‘It seemed undesirable to disturb the group with an alien element. And above all I was unwilling to put him in among you due to the presence in the group of — women.’
It seemed an excellent argument, even if the last word was brought out with an expression akin to distaste. Ernest Clayton was very close to defeat, but he tried one last throw.
‘All this seems very satisfactory,’ he said. ‘I confess you have laid some of my fears to rest. I wonder if you could persuade the young man to have a few words with me, just to confirm matters. Then we can let the thing drop entirely.’
‘That I’m afraid would be impossible. In this case the experiment proved — not a success.’
‘He has left? Already?’
Father Anselm cast a glance less benign than his recent ones at Ernest Clayton. ‘I have no doubt it was your doing. He felt pursued, spied on.’
‘I see,’ said Clayton. ‘Very regrettable, no doubt. I trust I shall have done no permanent harm, if he has a genuine vocation for the religious life. Did you think he had such a vocation, by the way?’
‘It would be presumptuous of me to give an opinion,’ said Father Anselm gravely. ‘Such decisions are not to be taken lightly. And now, if you have finished — ’
He ushered them to the door and unlocked it. Both men, safely on the other side of the door, felt very like naughty schoolboys who had avoided a wigging but had been given a talking down which was almost worse. And Clayton was alarmed to see that the Bishop showed signs of a resolve never, under any circumstances, to be a naughty boy again.
CHAPTER XIV
SCENES FROM CLERICAL LIFE
‘THE KNIFE, unfortunately, tells us nothing,’ said Detective-Inspector Croft regretfully to Sergeant Forsyte, looking down at the sturdy, razor-sharp instrument that had been discovered through Inspector Plunkett’s zeal. ‘They are a standard type, and can be bought anywhere — including Norway, no doubt.’
‘Where did it come from? Had they anything of the sort in the Community?’ asked Forsyte.
‘Father Anselm says that none of the monks fished. He says he has never seen anything of the sort around.’
‘You don’t believe him?’ asked Forsyte, unsure whether he had caught a note of scepticism in Croft’s voice.
‘It’s not our business to believe people, unless there’s some evidence to back up what they say,’ said Croft, ‘even if they wear flowing robes and swing rosaries. For what it’s worth, I certainly find Anselm enormously impressive. But I believe in paying less attention to impressions, and more to facts. One thing that puzzles me about the set-up of the murder is what the murderer wore, and that’s what I’m thinking about as of now.’
‘What he wore?’
‘There was blood, plenty of it. Some of it must have got on the murderer. Think of how the thing was done: it couldn’t have been easy, even if Brother Dominic was sleeping, which presumably he was. I’d guess whoever it was held something over his mouth while he slit him open — not easy, as I say, and needing a fair amount of strength, whether natural or summoned up for the occasion from some kind of frenzy of hatred or whatever. Now, he was bound
to get blood on him, whoever it was. What was he wearing, and where is it?’
‘Nothing’s been found in the search,’ said Forsyte.
‘No. But searching a huge area like this and not quite knowing what you are after is a nightmare game. I wonder if they’re looking in the right places. It seems to me the two alternatives were to clean it or to destroy it, whatever it was. I want particular attention paid to the laundry, and to any stoves or fires there may be.’
‘I’ll get the message through to the boys,’ said Sergeant Forsyte. ‘Anything else?’
‘No. I’m going through all this background stuff. Just keep an eye on the delegates — overhear anything you can. It’s them I’m interested in at the moment.’
‘They’re not talking much these days,’ said Sergeant Forsyte, ‘not when I’m near, anyway. While Plunkett was around I think they regarded me as a possible ally against him— ’
‘Rightly, I hope?’ said Croft.
‘ — for the credit of the force,’ continued Sergeant Forsyte imperturbably. ‘But since then they’ve rather fallen apart, there being nothing to unite against, and I think they’re all getting suspicious of each other, and of me too.’
‘All to the good,’ said Croft. ‘A flaming row among them could be really interesting. Couldn’t you ask them some really knotty theological questions, now, just to get them going?’
‘I’ve never been greatly interested in religion, sir, not since the war,’ said Forsyte gravely. ‘But if you yourself would care to suggest a query I would do my best to make it sound convincing.’
Left to himself Croft sat back and studied the reports on the various delegates to the St Botolph’s symposium. The reports in so far gave him little specific help, however revealing they might be of the state of the delegates’ various churches. The saddest figure seemed to be Philip Lambton. He had been brought up in Lancaster by a widowed mother of strong will and ferocious gentility. Mrs Lambton was a tireless organizer of bazaars, secretary and one-time president of the Mothers’ Union, feared bully of the local clergy, and one who kept her name before the Bishop by a series of long epistles on matters theological, organizational and frankly scandalous. Over-protected and over-driven, Philip had drifted through the most interesting decades of life in a state of severe atrophy of the will. He was ferociously bullied at school, gently bullied at university, mildly ridiculed in his first curacy. Through it all his devotion to his domineering mother had remained un-dimmed. ‘I thought he’d have to break out somehow,’ said a neighbour, who had had no love for the late Mrs Lambton, ‘but he never did.’
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